Image Issues
by Cheshire XOXO
Summary: Hiro is going through a self conscious stage in his adolescent life and struggles to find his own image. His friends decide to help and Tadashi is not amused. Alive!Tadashi because I'm in denial. Like the rest of this fandom.


Tadashi stepped off of his red Vespa and guided it into the garage as quietly as he could. It was close to midnight which was significantly earlier than the usual times Tadashi would come home from the SFIT lab. It was a Friday and since Tadashi finished his work at the lab, he decided to get as much sleep as he could. The complex was dark and the only sound that could be heard was Tadashi's padded footsteps quietly walking up the stairs. As he neared his shared room with Hiro, he saw a dim light peeking underneath the door. He could hear quiet shuffling and a low murmur.

"Is Hiro still awake," Tadashi thought in confusion. He opened the door only to be met with a strange sight.

Hiro was standing in front of the full body mirror dressed in one of Tadashi's yellow cardigans with a white t-shirt underneath and a pair of faded blue jeans. While the cardigan had a snug fit on Tadashi's body, it was still too big for Hiro and hung off of his shoulders. The white shirt underneath wasn't Tadashi's, he deduced by the way it actually fit Hiro's body. Tadashi smiled slightly at the sight of his baby brother dressed in his own clothes until he noticed the slight pout on Hiro's face.

"All you need is a pair of my pants and my baseball cap and your outfit will be complete," Tadashi said as he walked up behind Hiro. Their eyes met in the mirror.

"They were too big," Hiro mumbled turning his gaze downward from the mirror.

Tadashi frowned at his brother's unhappy demeanor. He took off his baseball cap with the SFN logo and placed it on top of Hiro's head. "Why were you trying on my clothes?

Hiro shrugged and pulled Tadashi's cardigan and cap off. "It's complicated." Hiro sat on his bed and buried his head in his hands.

"Hiro, you know you can tell me anything," Tadashi said as he sat down next to Hiro and pulled the teen's head into his chest.

Hiro rested his head on his brother's chest. "It's just that... I've been feeling kind of upset lately... But it's stupid..."

"Hiro, if it's upsetting you, it's not stupid," Tadashi said sternly.

Hiro sighed and a silence filled the room. Tadashi kept quiet, ruffling his brother's hair every now and then. It wasn't until Hiro shifted out of his arms that he knew the boy was ready to open up.

Hiro stood up and walked over to his desk. He traced picked up Megabit and traced its happy yellow face.

"I graduated high school when I was thirteen. Now I'm fourteen and going to college with you," Hiro began. Tadashi nodded as he listened intently to his brother.

"And you know I'm... significantly younger than everyone else at SFIT," Hiro continued. Tadashi nodded and smiled slightly thinking of his little genius of a brother.

"Well, it's kind of weird being around all of these older people and it doesn't help that I still look like a kid. I always look out of place and I feel out of place too," Hiro explained with a sigh as he set Megabot back down.

"I didn't think an ex bot fighter would ever worry about how other people viewed him," Tadashi said jokingly. His smile fell when he saw Hiro's half hearted glare.

Tadashi stood up and grabbed Hiro by the shoulders. "Come on, Hiro. You don't need to worry about what anyone else thinks. You're a genius fourteen year old that's going to do great things with his inventions.

"No, Tadashi, you don't understand. You've never felt like this before. You always knew who you were and you were always confident about it too," Hiro said with a frustrated sigh as he shrugged Tadashi off of him. Tadashi stood back and watched as his little brother disappear under a mass of blankets. With a sad sigh, Tadashi turned off the light and headed to bed himself. That night, he barely slept as he tried to come up with ways to boost his little brother's confidence.

The next day, Tadashi went to the SFIT lab where he left Baymax overnight. He mumbled a quick "ow" and watched the nurse-bot inflate.

"Hello, I am Baymax. Your personal healthcare companion. What seems to be the trouble, Tadashi?"

"Baymax, can you do me a favor and call the other?" Tadashi asked. "I need their help for something." Tadashi sat down at his desk. He looked at the messy half of the lab; Hiro's half. Since Hiro enrolled into SFIT, he and Tadashi shares Tadashi's lab space, as if sharing a room wasn't enough. Tadashi didn't mind though. He enjoyed bouncing ideas back and forth between his little brother.

"Your friends have been contacted. Your hormones indicate that you are stressed as well as tired. Sleep is important for you body and rest is important to your mental health. Lack of sleep can be caused by stress. Am I right to assume your lack of sleep is caused by your stress," Baymax asked as he waddled towards Tadashi.

Tadashi nodded and sighed for the nth time that morning. He heard the mumbling of voices coming from the main lab and he knew that his friends just arrived. He and Baymax went to join them in the main lab and they all gathered around Fred's chair.

"What's wrong, Tadashi," Honey Lemon asked.

Before Tadashi could answer, Baymax piped in. "He is stressed due to unknown causes."

"Did Hiro decide to start bot fighting again," Fred asked as he plopped himself onto the worn out couch.

Tadashi quickly shook his head. "No, of course not!"

"But this is about Hiro, right?" GoGo asked, already knowing the answer. When Tadashi nodded, she blew a pink bubble and popped it. "Well, get on with it then."

Tadashi explained to his friends what happened the night before. They all snickered at the thought of little Hiro in Tadashi's clothes, but soon their snickers faded into a solemn silence as Tadashi progressed with his story. A sad look was plastered on Tadashi's face as he told his friends how Hiro blatantly pointed out that his big brother didn't understand anything of what he was going through.

"I am sorry for not alerting you earlier," Baymax started. The rest of the group looked over to the nurse-bot.

Tadashi furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "What do you mean, Baymax?

"Hiro's hormones recently have indicated that he has been feeling upset. I only thought that they were mood swings, which naturally occur in young adolescents. I did not know this was not normal. I will add this information into my database."

"You don't have to do that, Baymax," Honey Lemon said as she patted Baymax's shoulder. "This is normal for teens. You were right."

"Yeah, relax Tadashi. Hiro's just going through some image issues. We all went through them. Everybody goes through them," Wasabi said reassuringly as he patted Tadashi's shoulder. "Didn't you?"

Tadashi shook his head. "To be honest, Hiro was right. I really don't understand how he's feeling right now. When our parents died when I was nine, I had to grow up really fast and take care of Hiro. I never really went through whatever he's going through right now, I guess," Tadashi explained as he rubbed the back of his next.

"Wow. You really need our help," GoGo stated as she crossed her arms.

"You're our friend Tadashi," Honey Lemon said with a kind smile. "And Hiro is our friend too. We'd be happy to help him."

"So, what happened to you guys when you were going through this?" Tadashi asked the four curiously.

"Oh, for me, it was terrible," Honey Lemon reminisced with a small smile. "I was a huge nerd, even back then, but I hit my growth spurt and I was suddenly taller than all of the other kids in my grade. I stuck out like a sore thumb and everyone made fun of me."

Tadashi bit his bottom lip, thinking about Hiro. "What did you do about it?"

"Oh, I would go home and cry, sometimes all night," Honey Lemon said with a short laugh. "Thinking about it now, it was really stupid. I shouldn't have cared what they thought, but I took their taunting way too seriously."

Before Honey Lemon could continue further, GoGo elbowed her in the ribs. GoGo nodded her head towards Tadashi who had a fearful look on his face.

"But it all turned out okay," Honey Lemon said trying to calm Tadashi down."I mean, I felt better about myself. And I wasn't like other kids who would hurt themselves over it-"

"Honey Lemon, stop. You're scaring him." Wasabi hissed as he pointed to Tadashi who at this point buried his head in his hands and tensed up significantly.

Baymax pulled Tadashi into his arms. "It will be alright. There, there," Baymax said as he patted Tadashi's head.

"Group hug!" Fred exclaimed and the rest of the group crowded around Tadashi and smothered him in a hug.

Tadashi gave them all a small smile. He was glad he could have friends he could count on to help Hiro when he couldn't. Even though he trusted his friends dearly, he felt worried about what they would do to his baby brother.


End file.
